f Robarts, whether right or wrong, had the useful effect of
sealing Gould's lips for some time to come. It only wanted a week to
the holidays, so the struggle was not so very prolonged.

Crawley went to see Edwards directly the council-board broke up, and
found him nervous and depressed.

"Perhaps I had no right to speak," he said. "It was not for me to tell.
I wouldn't; only you thought yourself under suspicion, and you have
been so good to me."

Well, Crawley could not but thank him and tell him he was quite right;
but he was not able for the life of him to say so in very cordial tones.

"Look here!" persisted Edwards, noticing this, "tell me honestly; if you
had been situated like me, would you have told of him?"

"Not to save my life!" blurted out Crawley; "I mean," he added hastily,
"I fear that I should not have had the moral courage."

The week passed, and Weston School once more broke up. What story
Saurin told to Sir Richard to induce him to take his name off the boards
quietly I do not know, but it had the desired effect; and when the boys
reassembled for the summer term Saurin's place was known no longer
amongst them. The scandal about him soon began to leak out, and the
story ran that but for Crawley's extreme generosity towards him he would
have now been in penal servitude at Portland.

Stubbs, too, went away that Easter vacation, taking Topper with him, and
the pair went out to China together, Stubbs having lucrative employment
in that country. Crawley returned, but that was his last term, and soon
afterwards he succeeded in getting into Woolwich.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

EPILOGUE.

A young man stood on the platform of the South-Western Railway pointing
out his luggage to a porter. There was a good deal of it, and every
package had _Serapis_ painted upon it. _Serapis_, however, was not the
name of that young man; that was inscribed on another part of the trunk,
and ran, "Vincent Crawley, RA." _Serapis_ indicated the ship into whose
hold all these things were to go. They had other marks, for some were
to go to the bottom--_absit omen_!--the bottom of the hold, I mean, not
of the sea, and were to remain there till the end of the voyage. But
one trunk was to lie atop, for it contained light clothing to be worn on
entering the Red Sea. Minute were the printed directions about these
matters which had been sent him directly he got his route. It is the
fashion to cry out against red tape, bu